Tuesday - November 25, 2014

RPGWatch Feature - Heroes of a Broken Land Review

by Myrthos, 23:35

Forgottenlor takes the rol of demigod in the retro dungeon crawler Heroes of a Broken Land and penned down this review.

I chose a large-sized world (size four or six) and have played about 45 hours already, and am only beginning to come within sight of finishing. After so much gaming time, I've become increasingly aware of the limits of the game. I can forgive the painfully mediocre graphics, which have a hard time competing with Wizardry 6's 25 year old sprites. I can also forgive the repetitive and somewhat out-of-place sound track. For me that is part of playing an indie retro game. However, for a game of this scope, which theoretically offers endless play, I would have hoped for more content. For example, there are skeletons, ghosts, rats, bats, slimes, and elementals in the game. Sure there are more than 10 different kinds of slimes, all with different colours and powers, but even so, after 40 hours I'm getting kind of sick of slimes. Also dungeons are divided into caves, mazes, towers, and mines. Even though the floor plans are random, I'm also getting tired of seeing the same tile sets repeat themselves.

A stronger narrative coupled with better presentation values could have made Heroes of a Broken Land an absolutely unforgettable experience, but what is there is still really, really good. It blends genres beautifully and creates a unique-feeling experience in the process, which is capable of being played time and time again due to its randomized world.

Saturday - August 09, 2014

Heroes of a Broken Land - Released on Steam

Heroes of a Broken Land is a turn-based, dungeon crawling, town management RPG. Explore procedurally generated worlds and dungeons with multiple parties of heroes. Ally with other towns to recruit new and more powerful heroes. Explore and loot countless dungeons on your quest to save the world.

Recruit heroes from the realm and turn novices into powerful adventurers

Each game is a unique world unto itself, with countless worlds and dungeons

Choose the size of your world: explore a small Fragment for quick adventure, or an enormous one for an epic quest

A Broken Land, shattered by the Wizards of old, the Fragments of the Old World are adrift in the Void. You must visit and restore each Fragment of the Void, only then can the World be rebuilt. However you are trapped in a crystal body, unable to act alone.

You must gather and recruit the many Heroes of each Fragment to act for you. You must explore each Fragment of the World. Delve into every dungeon to gather the resources and power needed to purify each Fragment. Expand your outpost to train and equip your heroes. Make allies with the other towns and settlements, convince them to join in your quest.

Sunday - July 13, 2014

Heroes of a Broken Land - Greenlit on Steam

Heroes of a Broken Land has been Greenlit!

Finally the day has arrived!

I hope to have more details about when exactly Heroes of a Broken Land will appear on Steam. I plan on adding some Steam-specific features (acheivements, cards) and will have to do some research before commiting to a release date.

So stay tuned!

P.S. I'd just like to be clear, than people who have already purchased the game from another site, you are entitled to a Steam key when the game launches on Steam.

Monday - April 07, 2014

Heroes of a Broken Land - Patch 1.5 Released

Winged Pixel has released patch 1.5 for Heroes of a Broken Land. Here are some of the patch changes taken from the games website.

Heroes of a Broken Land 1.5

A new version of Heroes of a Broken Land has been released!

Lots of fixes and improvements this time most notibly a minor change to how status effects are handled, where now the most powerful effect will take precidence (cast Poison and the Decay, the Decay effect will take priority). Plus, there is now an icon for Haste, Chill and Burn statuses. Also a lot of fixes and adjustments to Golem character building.

Here’s the full changlist for 1.5:

Add icons for Haste, Chill and Burn statuses

Healing spells now ignore resistance

Status inflicting skills now inflict the stronger version (Decay will override Poison)

Saturday - February 01, 2014

Heroes of a Broken Land - Interview

As a one man team, did you ever feel overwhelmed by the sheer ambition of heroes of A Broken Land?

From time to time yes, the sheer scope of the game could feel a bit overwhelming. At times it would feel like I’d never finish, but often that feeling passes and if you just keep taking one step after another eventually you can see that your goal is just around the corner.

The game seems to have it all. What was the most challenging aspect of creating such a diverse and expansive experience?

Balance was always my concern, with so many classes and game systems plus randomly generated worlds it was always a challenge to create just the right amount of difficulty. Basically just making sure the dungeon crawling, world and towns interacted in interesting ways and didn’t feel like 2-3 different games duct-taped together.Did you set out to redefine the turn-based RPG by injecting so many different genres into the core-concept?

Not at all! The design for Heroes of a Broken Land simply came from the idea of wanting to combine some of my favorite games of the past. I was disappointed that turn-based dungeon crawlers weren’t being released anymore, because I wanted to play one! It was really just about trying to create a game that I’d want to play.

Wednesday - January 29, 2014

Heroes of a Broken Land - Review @ IndieRPGs

Based on what I’ve played so far, I give this a cautious recommendation–the full recommendation will have to wait, pending a full playthrough or two. Either way, though, I think you have to concede: the mere fact that a game like Heroes of a Broken Land exists is pretty remarkable. This gives me some high hopes for the cRPG genre.

Wednesday - January 22, 2014

Heroes of a Broken Land - Now Available

Heroes of a Broken Land is Out!

A year in the making, Heroes of a Broken Land is finally done! Combining the best of old school dungeon crawling and large world strategy, plus prodedural generate for a new adventure each time you play, Heroes of a Broken Land is not to be missed!

The current plan is to release Version 1.0 in mid-January. I’ll announce an exact and official release date in early January.

What will change between the latest Beta (7.8) and 1.0?

Not much. I’ll be continuing to improve the game by fixing bugs and polish the game, but there’s not much left on my task list. Beta 7.9 will possibly be the last Beta version.

As the game stands, I’m quite happy with the experience delivered. Heroes of a Broken Land provides a light but deep, old-school dungeon crawling experience. It provides countless worlds and dungons to explore. Combined with the town building, world events, and multiple parties, I believe that Heroes of a Broken Land has a good balance of new and old. A part of me would be happy to stop here.

Monday - December 02, 2013

Heroes of a Broken Land - Beta 7.6 Released

Heroes of a Broken Land – Beta 7.6 Released

Another week another version!

Firstly the game now has difficulty levels! The current difficulty is now called Normal. Because the difficulty does affect the world generation you can only select the difficulty at the start of a new game. Time will tell if the new difficulty levels are balanced or not.

Plus, I’ve finally gotten around to adding a full history when exploring dungeons.

Full list of changes in Beta 7.6:

- Magic affinity now affects all spells and reduces by a % of MP cost - Heroes can now be dismissed at the Town Hall - Fix bug in stat modifiers display - Dungeon message history log added (click on the compass) - Damage number colors added - Weapon mastery skills descriptions fixed - Fix UI breakage when returning to the world map under certain conditions - Fix incorrect Town icons on sidebar when switching worlds (by loading a game) - Fix auto map switches in multi party dungeons - Difficulty settings added to game creation (chosen on world generation) - Fix various spelling mistakes

Friday - October 11, 2013

Heroes of a Broken Land - Beta 5.0 Available

Lots of improvements all around, tons of new world events that give quests, some involving multiple dungeons, giving you a much more lively world. Plus the much-requested auto attack button, for those easier encounters.

List of Changes:

Fixed a bug where multi-floor dungeons could change on reload

Auto-attack toggle added, automatic melee attacks for easy encounters

Added basic mini-map feature to the world

World monster made more dangerous, damage is % of total gold, monsters are more agressive

Between Beta and the Final version dungeon variety will be improved, with new traps and interactive objects. The game needs some balancing work, espeically with non-human classses and the end game. Of course all bugs must be squashed and there are 100s of little issues to address before the final version can be released.

Sunday - August 18, 2013

Heroes of a Broken Land - Preview @ IndieRPGs

IndieRPGs.com plays the alpha build of Heroes of a Broken Land, and give us a look at the first-person dungeon crawler.

As you can see, I quickly died, then had much more success after restarting:

The game is still early in development, but it’s clear to me that there is a ton of potential here. The sheer scope and ambition of the game is pretty remarkable. With an improved GUI, more varied content, a nicer graphical presentation on the overworld map, and some relatively simple improvements* to combat, I think this could turn out to be something very special indeed. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one as development continues.